‘Exactly what they needed’: What star student Kayleigh Heckel has added to UConn’s Final Four run
PHOENIX – The fact that she was going to the Final Four for the first time didn’t really hit UConn’s Kayleigh Heckel until she arrived in Phoenix the other day. “When we got here and I saw the logo everywhere, it was kind of setting in that I’m actually here,” Heckel said Thursday. “It’s funny because Coach (Geno Auriemma) keeps teasing me about how I wasn’t here last year and how they beat me to get here.
” “He walked in when I was taking pictures with the trophy and he was like, ‘Oh, remember when you did this last year? Oh right, you weren’t here last year. ’” Heckel, a sophomore guard, takes the teasing in stride; she was a freshman on the USC team which UConn beat last year in the regional final in Spokane to go to the Final Four.
Heckel, who was born in Greenwich and grew up in Port Chester, N. Y. , transferred to UConn in May and now she’s at her first Final Four as the top-seeded Huskies (38-0) get ready to face South Carolina (35-3) Friday (7 p.
m. ) in the national semifinal game at Mortgage Matchup Center. Wednesday, she won an award that no Husky has won since Maya Moore did it in 2011 – Heckel was honored as the 2026 NCAA Elite Scholar-Athlete for women’s basketball.
An analytics and information management major, Heckel has a 3. 967 GPA. “We have some really good professors to work with us, they kind of help us out when it comes to deadlines, but I think we’re also really on top of our work,” Heckel said.